


The Unexpected

by vicki



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Community: swficathon, F/M, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-10-08
Updated: 2005-10-08
Packaged: 2017-10-12 12:12:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/124702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vicki/pseuds/vicki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She may have learnt to expect the unexpected, but Elizabeth never would have expected <em>this</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	The Unexpected

Elizabeth Weir had learned to expect the unexpected at a young age. A necessary survival technique with three older brothers, she had honed the skill through dozens of negotiations.

She could say without any doubt whatsoever, that she had never expected to be stuck up an alien tree along with the expedition's military commander.

"I'm blaming you for this," she said, gingerly trying to rest her back against the trunk of the tree.

"Well, would you rather be down there with _that_?" he protested, waving his hand precariously towards the alien animal prowling around the base of the tree.

They could still hear the animal snarling from the ground below. It resembled a llama, with the exception of its sharp, blood-stained teeth.

"Well, no," she said, clutching the trunk a little tighter as his over-enthusiastic hand gestures made the tree shake.

Scrambling up the tree had seemed like the best idea at the time. However, it wasn't until they were up the tree, and the animal was circling below, did they realize that all their supplies were still sitting by the small pond. Removing the tactical vest hadn't been the smartest idea ever, but before the creature had arrived, it had seemed perfectly safe, and it had certainly been hot.

"This is all your fault, you do realize?"

"Me?" He tried to look innocent.

"Yes. _'Oh, come on, Elizabeth, it's perfectly safe. We'll just go for a little walk down here… Ja'ndor Riksha said that that the natural wildlife was really something you have to see.'_ And now, here we are, stuck up a tree!"

John grinned, and she had to resist the sudden urge to smack him around the back of the head. "Well, he was right about the wildlife really being something to see."

Elizabeth slowly counted to ten in her head.

She was _not_ going to throw him out of the tree.

She _really_ didn't want Caldwell as her military commander.

And the paper work that it would generate would probably be horrendous.

"So... do you have any ideas as to how we're going to get out of this particular mess?" she asked, keeping her voice even and steady.

He looked back and forth between Elizabeth and the animal.

"Not a clue."

 _One...two... three..._

"Well, we can hardly sit here all night," she said, trying to sound reasonable.

"It could be worse."

"How?"

He smirked. "Well, you could be up here with McKay."

 _...four... five... six..._

"Do you think that I'd be up this tree with Rodney?"

Sheppard looked thoughtful. "I don't know. Do you think he's any good at climbing trees?"

"Unsurprisingly, that wasn't one of the questions that I asked when I was recruiting people for this mission," she said, in a tone more scathing than usual.

"Aw, now that's a shame," he grinned. "You should have some more interesting questions for them. 'Can you climb trees?' 'Who won the English soccer premiership?' 'Can you name all seven of the dwarves?' 'Do you know how to bake cookies?'"

She raised her eyebrow. "I can bake cookies."

"Really? Actually, so can I, if I really want to admit that. "

She snickered. "I'm guessing that baking is one of those hidden skills you keep bragging about."

He waggled his eyebrows suggestively. "It's not the _only_ hidden skill I have, y'know."

She giggled, goddamn it. Actually giggled

"Well, unless one of those hidden skills is distracting killer llamas, then they're not much use up here," she said.

"Do you really think it's a llama?" he asked, leaning his head across the edge of the branch to look down. She automatically grabbed him.

"Don't do that!" she said in a scolding voice. "I don't really want to see you falling to your death and then watch the killer llama eat your body."

"Aw, you care," he said, smirking at her.

She tried to hide her smile as she retorted, "Actually, I care about the amount of paperwork your death would cause me."

He pouted, she shook her head at him, and grinned, before settling herself as comfortably as possible. She had a feeling that they were going to be there for a while.

 

* * *

Just over five hours later, the sun was setting on the horizon. Elizabeth was contemplating if there was anyway that she and John would be able to sit close enough together to share body heat, without falling out of the tree and plummeting to their deaths.

She was about to ask John if he would be willing to move, before noticing that he was distracted by something down below. She could only hope that the llama-creature had tired of them, and had wandered off elsewhere to find food.

"What is it?"

"It's Ja'ndor Riksha," he said, leaning precariously close towards the edge of the branch.

"Colonel Sheppard! Doctor Weir! What are you doing up there?"

"It's not by choice!" John called back. "There's this... creature below us."

"You mean Tompa?" the alien man laughed, moving close towards the animal and resting a hand gently on its back. "She is one of the pack animals we use to carry our crops."

Elizabeth looked at John skeptically. "What about the blood on... ah, _her_ teeth?"

Riksha laughed heartily, and she momentarily felt foolish. "That is the juice of the Bulana berry; her favorite food. You can come down from there now; unless you wish to spend the night in the tree, of course. I am sure you will find your rooms in the village _much_ more comfortable."

The look she shot the man was deadly, as she slowly began her descent.

Her foot slipped.

"Elizabeth!"

"Doctor Weir!"

She heard the panicked shouts of her name from both above and below her.

Her heart was pounding as she struggled to regain her footing. She was vaguely aware of a pain stretching from her elbow to her wrist, and she could still hear John urgently calling her name.

"I'm fine," she called back, noting that her voice sounded shaky.

She could hear the relief in his voice as he told her to be careful. "I thought we'd made a promise."

"I wasn't dead," she laughed shakily, as she moved carefully down the last few feet.

On solid ground once again, she looked warily at the large creature and subtly tried to take a step away from it.

John jumped down in front of her, and immediately grabbed her arm. "Damn it, Elizabeth, you're bleeding."

She looked down, noting that yes, there was in fact blood coming from a gash on her forearm

"I'm fine," she said, vaguely aware of the tingling sensation she was feeling where his hand was touching her.

He frowned, gently wiping the blood away from the wound. "It doesn't look too bad," he said, and she was vaguely aware that Riksha was hovering over John's shoulder, looking rather interested in their conversation.

She pulled her arm away from his. "I think we should get back to the village," she said firmly, glancing over his shoulder at Riksha. "Doctor Beckett can take a look at it when we get back there."

"Okay," he agreed, moving to her side and hovering protectively

The walk back to the village was a bit uneasy. John was eying the llama-like creature distrustfully, even once he'd strapped his tactical vest back on.

They were accosted by McKay almost as soon as they passed the first house. "Elizabeth, Colonel Sheppard, I found this... what happened to your arm?"

Elizabeth smiled. "In the battle of me versus the tree, I'm ashamed to say that the tree won. It's just a scratch."

"I'll be the judge of that." Carson appeared from nowhere. "What's this about a tree?"

"Elizabeth and I have been up a tree for a while," John said. "It had to do with a vicious creature."

"Which wasn't that vicious actually. Carson, I'm fine, really. John's already looked at it; it's just a scratch," Elizabeth protested as the doctor led her away from the small group forming in the middle of the street. John automatically followed, holding the door open as they ducked into a small hut which he'd been using as a laboratory.

"Aye, but I'd like to clean it up and put a dressing on it," he said, indicating that Elizabeth should sit on the sole chair. "And while I'm sure Colonel Sheppard did an _admirable_ job, kissing it better would have just added more germs."

Elizabeth and John's heads shot around to look across at Carson.

With a wicked smile, he turned away, chanting under his breath, "Sheppard and Elizabeth, sitting in a tree..."


End file.
